175th Birthday / 175. Geburtstag

This weekend is the 175th birthday celebration for the Salzburg Museum. The Salzburg Museum actually includes a half dozen different museums, most close to the center of town with a couple satellite museums further out. Free entry into these museums was at the forefront of the celebration.

We visited the Domgrabungsmuseum (Cathedral Excavations Museum) which lies directly under the cathedral and includes excavated areas that date back to the Romans. We also visited the Panorama Museum which features a round oil painting that is 26 meters in circumferance (round as in you stand in the middle of a round room and the painting surrounds you) from 1829 which gives you a view of Salzburg from that time as if you were standing on the castle hill. The final stop was the main Salzburg Museum, a relatively new museum opened in 2007. It Includes biographical rooms of historically influential Salzburg men and women, as well as art and history. It recently won the 2009 European Museum of the Year award and is an intense museum in which one could probably spend an entire day.

In addition to free admission, there was an artistic and funky "non-alcoholic cocktail" machine dispensing various concoctions that included strawberry, orange, and/or blackcurrent juices (Nikolas is carefully carrying a cup above), a crazy magician, a schedule of special presentations and tours (conducted in German), as well as a children's program with special art projects for the older set and Kasperl shows for the younger. Kasperl is a traditional puppet character in Austria and Germany. Similar to the British Punch and Judy (though without all the beating that Punch and Judy do), Kasperl has to solve problems and challenge bad guys while the children in the audience shout out warnings and instructions throughout. Nikolas loves it and sat through two different performances.

Sadly the weather did not cooperate for the 3:00pm send off of 175 balloons. It had started as a relatively pleasant morning (cool like April but partly sunny), but unforecasted rain and storms moved in. The wind gusts were so bad that they were able to up-end this umbrella, drag the attached metal base and cabinet several feet, coming to crash on this very expensive bike that someone had locked up next to the bench. It makes for a very artistic photo, but I am glad that is wasn't my bike!